Branko Perisic

The contemporary Digital Twinning Paradigm (DTP) emerges from the synergy of conceptual development and experiences gained through the digital transformation of real-world Cyber–Physical and Sociotechnical Systems. Balancing current practices and future trends of Digital Twinning concepts and technologies, framed by maturity and futureness evaluation and assessment, is an invariant. The intended mission of this research article is to perform the following: first, to establish and collect an open pool of digital twinning future trends and second, to specify the foundations for the development of a Digital Twinning Future Trends Evaluation Digital Twins-based framework. The proposed in-depth explainable (unleashed) systematic literature review methodology aided in fulfilling the first part of a mission, while the second one emerged from the transposition of characteristics of complementary maturity evaluation frameworks’ characteristics and digital twins referent architectures. The key research hypothesis is that the formation of a future trends persistence database precedes the backward-tracking analysis, enabling the isolation of the persistence rationale. These rationalities then drive the DTP model refinements to foster further prediction accuracy. The research outcomes suggest that, in general, a more rigorous justification of research suitability is necessary and highlight certain obstacles affecting the representativeness of review-based publishing. Through the continuous improvement of the future trends data layer, coupled with a comprehensive repertoire of cross-related research publications, the proposed framework enables the assessment of future trends in the DTP or other paradigms through the proposed Digital Twins Reference Architecture.

The contemporary Digital Twinning Paradigm (DTP) emerges from the synergy of conceptual development and experiences gained through the digital transformation of real-world Cyber-Physical and Sociotechnical Systems. Balancing current practices and future trends of Digital Twinning concepts and technologies, framed by maturity and futureness evaluation and assessment, is an invariant. The intended mission of this research article is to: first, establish and collect an open pool of digital twinning future trends, and second, specify the foundations for the development of a Digital Twinning Future Trends Evaluation Digital Twins-based framework. A systematic literature review methodology aided in fulfilling the first part of a mission, while the second one emerged from the characteristics of complementary maturity evaluation frameworks and digital twins referent architectures. The key research hypothesis is that the formation of a future trends persistence database precedes the backward-tracking analysis, enabling the isolation of the persistence rationale. These rationalities then drive the DTP model refinements to foster further prediction accuracy. The research outcomes suggest that, in general, a more rigorous justification of research suitability is necessary, and highlight certain obstacles affecting the representativeness of review-based publishing. Through the continuous improvement of the future trends data layer, coupled with a comprehensive repertoire of cross-related research publications, the proposed framework enables the assessment of future trends in the DTP or other paradigms through Digital Twins.

Sociotechnical systems (STSs) are generally assumed to be systems that incorporate humans and technology, strongly depending on a sustainable equilibrium between the following nondeterministic social context ingredients: social structures, roles, and rights, as well as the designers’ Holy Grail, the deterministic nature of the underlying technical system. The fact that the relevant social concepts are more mature than the supporting technologies qualifies the digital transformation of sociotechnical systems as a reengineering rather than an engineering endeavor. Preserving the social mission throughout the digital transformation process in varying social contexts is mandatory, making the digital twins (DT) methodology application a contemporary research hotspot. In this research, we combined continuous transformation STS theory principles, an observer-based system-of-sociotechnical-systems (SoSTS) architecture model, and digital twinning methods to address common STS context representation challenges. Additionally, based on model-driven systems engineering methodology and meta-object-facility principles, the research specifies the universal meta-concepts and meta-modeling templates, supporting the creation of arbitrary sociotechnical systems’ external context digital twins. Due to the inherent diversity, significantly influenced by geopolitical, economic, and cultural influencers, a higher education external context specialization illustrates the reusability potentials of the proposed universal meta-concepts. Substituting higher-education-related meta-concepts and meta-models with arbitrary domain-dependent specializations further fosters the proposed universal meta-concepts’ reusability.

Digital transformation in higher education represents a challenging endeavor due to a higher diversity of education domains significantly affected by geopolitical, economic, socio-technology, and cultural context influencers. The contemporary research ecosystem lacks the meta-model-based approaches to education context management on arbitrary granularity levels. This research fills that gap by proposing a novel, meta-object-facility-inspired, and meta-model-driven approach to higher education context management. Throughout the justification of five stated hypotheses, this research introduces the essential profiles, related meta-models, and individual meta-concepts integrated over the proposed hyper-document. The universal, generic, and domain-specific meta-concepts, refined over the concrete external and internal contexts, transform the proposed hyper-document to an arbitrary higher education context management specialization.

To cope with the complexity, the digital transformation of cyber-physical and socio-technology systems demands the utilization of heterogeneous tailorable development environments with dynamic configuring ability and transparent integration of independently developed dedicated frameworks. The essential design principles and component-based architecting of the initial prototype of the digital transformation hyper-framework represent this research target. These principles are derived from the broad scope analysis of digital transformation projects, methods, and tools and are glued to the proposed virtual twin hyper-document. The critical analysis of the digital transformation domain influenced the formulation of five research hypotheses that frame digital transformation of digital transformation, as the second goal of this research article. Armed with a meta-modeling layer, the incremental development of hybrid architecture instances focuses on meta-models and their transformations into functional, interpretable environments. The applicability aspects of the formulated hypothesis are verified throughout the architecture, meta-configuration, and handling of information resources as the essential segments of the initial version of the proposed evolution prototype. The detailed illustration of the horizontal and vertical interoperability of the proposed framework is illustrated by the Life Cycle Modeling component framework that creatively integrates the System, Software, and Operation Engineering aspects of the proposed hyper-framework. The proposed prototype capabilities are discussed in the context of the contemporary digital transformation ecosystem. Specification and development of the additional component frameworks, in compliance with specified generative mechanisms, directing further refinements of the proposed hyper-framework.

To cope with the complexity, the digital transformation of cyber-physical and socio-technology systems demands the utilization of heterogeneous tailorable development environments with dynamic configuring ability and transparent integration of independently developed dedicated frameworks. Hyper-frameworks, aka Framework-of-Frameworks, correspond to the System-of-Systems paradigm and designate a software-supported, meta-model-based generator of executable configurations. Armed with a meta-modeling layer, the incremental development of hybrid architecture instances focuses on language-based models and their transformations into functional, interpretable environments. Data-driven reasoning and decision support for the entire life cycle of digitally transformed systems critically depends on the effectiveness of involved generative mechanisms and the trustworthiness of related information resources. The Architecture, Meta-Configuration, and Information Resource Handling are the essential segments of the initial version of the proposed evolution prototype. In this article, we formulate five essential hypotheses founding the proposed digital transformation hyper-framework project that integrates the framework model with a meta-configuration-based generative mechanism. The Life Cycle Modeling component framework creatively integrates System, Software, and Operation Engineering. Specification and development of the additional component frameworks, in compliance with specified generative mechanisms, direct further refinements of the proposed Hyper-framework.

The concept of digital twins has been in the field for a long time, constantly challenging the specification, modeling, design, implementation, and exploitation of complex cyber–physical systems. Despite the various foundations, standards, and platforms in systems engineering, there are ongoing challenges with verification and validation methodology. This study aims to establish a generic framework that addresses the various aspects of digital twinning. The multifaceted nature of the problem requires raising the abstraction level in both the real (actual) and virtual domains, effective dissemination of information resources, and a design inspired by verification and validation. The proposed framework combines the quintuple helix model with the problem and operational domains of a real (actual) twin, the solution and implementation domains of a virtual twin, and the execution domain as the bridge that links them. Verification and validation dimensions follow the meta object facility abstraction layers (instance, model, meta-model, and meta-meta-model) mapping over five helices. Embedding the complexity reduction mechanisms in the proposed framework builds a suite for extendible and verifiable digital twinning in simulation and real-time scenarios. The application of main conceptual framework mechanisms in a real-world example study aids the verification of this research’s intentions. The validation is a matter of further research endeavors.

The concept of Digital Twins has been in the field for a long time, constantly challenging the specification, modeling, design, implementation, and exploitation of complex cyber-physical systems. Despite the various foundations, standards, and platforms in Systems Engineering, there are ongoing challenges with Verification and Validation methodology. This study aims to establish a generic framework that addresses the various aspects of Digital Twinning. The multifaceted nature of the problem requires raising the abstraction level in both the Real (Actual) and Virtual domains, effective dissemination of information resources, and a design inspired by verification and validation. The proposed framework combines the Quintuple Helix model with the Problem and Operational Domains of a Real (Actual) Twin, the Solution and Implementation Domains of a Virtual Twin, and the Execution Domain as the bridge that links them. Verification and Validation dimensions follow the Meta Object Facility abstraction layers (Instance, Model, Meta-model, and Meta-meta-model) mapping over five Helices. Embedding the complexity reduction mechanisms in the proposed framework builds a suite for extendible and verifiable digital twinning in simulation and real-time scenarios.

We discuss the collaboration support of loosely coupled Smart Systems through configurable hyper-frameworks. Based on the system-of-systems (SoS) paradigm, in this article, we propose the model of a novel extendible conceptual framework with domain-specific moderation support for model-based simulations and the engineering of complex heterogeneous systems. The domain knowledge meta-model and corresponding management enterprise architecture enable the creation of template-based specializations. The proposed SoS conceptual framework meta-model represents an initial framework prototype that supports modeling, simulation, analysis, and utilization of dynamic architecting of heterogeneous SoS configurations. A Smart-Habitat concept encapsulating Smart-Area, Smart-City, Smart-Lot, Smart-Building, and Smart-Unit abstractions illustrate the frameworks’ applicability. The proposed SoS conceptual framework represents the initial conceptual support for modeling, simulation, analysis, and dynamic architecting of heterogeneous SoS configurations. We plan to refine the component architecture meta-model, specify a language workbench with Domain-Specific Orchestration Language support, and verify the configuration-based simulation manifest creation. These actions lead to the framework’s next stage, an operational framework (OF) instance, as a transitional artifact to the aimed software framework (SwF) counterpart.